The reverse slice drop shot can either be played from your forehand corner where you'd hit it
straight or your round head corner where you'd hit it cross the technique for these two shots
is slightly different so in this video we're going to show you how to master both of these
before we teach you the technique you first need to briefly understand why you would play each of
these reverse slice drop shots. The straight and cross-court reverse slice are great variations to
add to your attack in both singles and doubles and because they're deceptive shots they'll
hopefully either be an outright winner or set you up to win the point on the next shot! So for
the cross-court reverse it looks like you're going to hit the shuttle straight but it actually goes cross
and for the straight reverse it looks like you're going to hit the shuttle cross court but
it actually goes straight! Okay so now let's break down how you can master these shots and first we
need to get the preparation right your preparation should be the same as your smash clear or other
drop shots this is because it's a deceptive shot and if it doesn't look the same then it won't
be as effective! Like we've said in our previous videos on the basic drop and smash technique you
want your body to be facing sideways with your racket arm around a 90 degree angle like this
with your non-racket arm pointing up like this to help with your timing balance and
your rotation and for the grip you need to be in a loose forehand grip for both the straight
and the cross court shots okay you're in the right position but how do you actually hit the reverse?
Well the most important thing is your wrist and forearm rotation so we're going to start with that
unlike a smash where you hit through the shuttle like this at the last millisecond you rotate your
wrist through so that it's facing almost upwards like this, it's a similar action to either turning
a doorknob or opening a jam jar if you're right-handed or closing the jar if you're
left-handed! And this action is so important we have a practice for you to do now wherever you are
sitting or standing do two smashes with just your arm hitting through the shuttle like this and then
two reverses with your wrist rotation at the last second we'll pause the video for you to do it now
and we're back now to know if you've done the movement correctly put a racket in your hand
and just after you strike the shuttle your strings should face diagonally like this
and in the same direction as your palm. Your arm should still be moving in the opposite
direction afterwards as that's what makes your opponent think you're hitting it the other way
now the straight and cross-court reverse slice are similar in technique but there are a few
differences so let's move on to the cross-court reverse slice from your round head corner
and then on to the straight reverse and finally we'll give you a couple of great
practices for you to master these shots in a match! So you're in this position after
doing your preparation you then want to bring your elbow through with a fast swing
and then you do the forearm and wrist rotation we've just shown to hit the left side of the
cork if you're right-handed and the right side of the cork if you're left-handed
your contact point is also really important. To hit the cross-court reverse most effectively
you want to strike the shuttle anywhere from above your head to over to where your grip is in line
with your non-racket shoulder you also want to have almost a straight arm at the point of contact
look at the pros here - if you try to hit the reverse with a bent arm then firstly you've
shown that it's going to be a softer shot which makes it much more obvious to your opponents
but also you're more likely to hit it into the net as your contact point is a lot lower
yes and because you're hitting the shuttle cross court the angle of your strings need
to be facing in this direction as you hit it but it's really important not to show this until the
last millisecond if you have your strings facing cross the whole time it won't be deceptive at all
and it will actually be quite hard to hit the shot! Again, after you've hit the shuttle you need
to continue this momentum with your swing with your racket coming across your body you also
need to consider the pace of your shot hitting the side of the cork means that it will lose
speed as it's traveling towards the net so you need to make sure that you're still hitting the
shuttle with enough speed and forwards momentum for it to a still actually reach the net but also
b still make sure that you're generating a fast racket speed for it to look like a smash or clear
and as it's going across it's even more important to hit the shot with
pace as the shuttle has a lot further to travel how much further well let's measure
1.4 meters to be precise so you need to hit it 1.4 meters further
okay so putting all of these steps together the cross-court reverse slice should look like this
now we want to keep almost all of that technique the same for the straight reverse apart from two
things firstly your contact point is slightly different you most often hit this shot when
the shuttle is either straight above your head or just out to the side of you and the second
difference is the contact point on your strings because you want the shuttle to go straight you
need to strike the shuttle before you turn your wrist too much otherwise it would end up like this
and this one difference is why the straight reverse is much more difficult than the
cross reverse so putting all of these steps together the straight reverse should look like this
now we have one more technical point for you before we move on to the practices
and this is that how much you rotate your body in both of these shots will depend on factors
such as the height of the shot and what position you're in on the court sometimes you'll have the
time to rotate a lot but other times you may not be able to rotate as much but whatever the
situation you still have to have some sort of body rotation to make the shot effective
okay so we've gone through the technique for both of these reverse slices
but you need to be able to incorporate it into your game so here are two simple practices to
help you do just that! The first practice is quite stationary where you're focusing solely on the
technique make sure you include some movement though as you need to get used to the timing
of the footwork with the shot it's a simple one to feed all you need to do is a high serve to
a corner and getting a lot more advanced you can also do these reverse slices with different speeds
some might be a bit more loopy where you have a slower racket swing speed which reduces the
pace on the shuttle or you can hit it faster like this one from Zheng Siwei where his racket is moving
so fast through the air which increased the speed that the shuttle traveled at. As I said these are
advanced variations of the reverse slice but it is good to experiment with different paces! The second
practice is a nice progression from this this is where you hit a shot from a corner and then move
to either hit a straight or cross-court reverse slice and this replicates a typical movement you
might do in a match if you're a singles player you might hit a clear and then move back to the
forehand corner and do the straight reverse and for a doubles player practicing the cross
reverse slice you might hit a shot from your forehand rear court to a feeder who lifts into
your round-the-head corner where you'd play this cross-court reverse slice and for doubles players
you can also play this to the middle as you should be careful about doing too many cross-court shots
you should then quickly assess how it felt after each one maybe get
some external feedback to add to your intrinsic feedback and then go again
it's important to mention that you need strength in your core in both of these slices especially
the cross court to prevent you from collapsing when playing the shot and losing your control
and you also need strength in your legs to recover quickly from this position if you're
playing singles and they get your shot back then the likely reply is a straight block so you've
got to be ready to move the longest distance on the court and to do both of these shots you need
to be able to move quickly and efficiently to both rear court corners and here are two of our
videos that will help you do just that and lastly if you enjoyed this video please give it a like
SMASH the subscribe button if you haven't already and we'll see you on another video very soon :-)